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Naiyi Wang is a curator and researcher whose work concentrates on the juncture between ecology, technology, and expanded definitions of life and non-life from an intersectional perspective. Currently, she serves as curatorial director of 798CUBE, a brand new institution dedicated to art, science and technology, organizing exhibitions of international caliber to share with a global audience.
She curated the inaugural Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) titled Synthetic Ecology (2022), which brings together 50 renowned artists, scientists and ecologists from all over the world. She serves as director and chief curator of Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) and is currently curating the second edition titled Earthwise, which will take place between November 1, 2024 and March 16, 2025 at 798CUBE, Beijing.
She initiated Climate Care (2020–ongoing), an initiative dedicated to exploring the convergence of art, technology and climate change, while seeking to evoke action on the climate crisis in all its facets. Since its inception, the Climate Care initiative has continued to promote innovative movements, launching Climate Clock #ActInTimeChina, Climate Declaration series, and Climate Negotiation series. All projects involve creative explorations of ecology, economy, and emerging (web3) technologies. She collaborated with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to curate WE ARE NATURE, which is programmed with the inaugural China Climate Action Week (2022). By encouraging the development of ecologically-conscious and collaborative practices in art+technology, she aims to nurture mutually beneficial relations among art, technology, and ecology through a transdisciplinary curatorial approach, providing unconventional responses to planetary challenges.
She initiated an ongoing research project CARE in 2020, with first launch at London Design Biennale (LDB 2023), and then Guangzhou Design Triennial (GDT 2024). By using these two platforms as a testing ground, this project offers fertile ground for thinking through care in its many forms—of humans and non-humans—while addressing its intricacies. It is a living collection of incentives to reimagine the politics and ethics of care at a time when a world where carelessness reigns. CARE manifests through Collective-care initiatives, ‘Care-full’ practices, as well as a Care Manifesto published by BAUHINIA in 2024, including a series of declarations of “I care by…” by 50 interdisciplinary designers, architects, thinkers, activists, scholars, healers and cultural practitioners from the Global South and Global North.
She was chief curator for 751 International Design Festival titled Narratives of Love in 2023. She co-curated Material Tales: The Life of Things (in collaboration with Design Museum London) in 2021. Prior to that, she curated/co-curated exhibitions at 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, London Design Festival, Milan Design Week, Beijing Media Art Biennale (BMAB), Asia Digital Art Exhibition (ADAE), Stanley Picker Gallery (London), Flux Factory (New York), CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), among many others.
She is co-author of Design Beyond the Human: Transdisciplinary Conversations About the Planet (edited by Elio Caccavale and Prof Gordon Hush), which will be published by Bloomsbury. Her recent translations include The Curatorial: A Philosophy of Curating (Beijing: China Pictorial Publishing House, 2021), Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life (Nanjing: Phoenix Publishing & Media Group, 2023) and Sifting the Trash: A History of Design Criticism (Nanjing: Phoenix Publishing & Media Group, forthcoming).
She is a lecturer in MA Design Criticism & Curatorial Studies at d-School of China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). She is a recipient of Sino-British Fellowship Trust (2023–26, 2016–17) and Design Trust Feature Grant (2023-24), and currently pursuing a PhD in V&A/RCA History of Design based in two of the world's leading institutions Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and Royal College of Art (RCA), and divides her time between London and Beijing.
